New in Funding: 💸 $900M impact fund

💰 Apax closed its Apax Global Impact Fund with $900 million to support mission-driven companies tackling critical environmental or social issues, including health, wellness, environment, social and economic mobility, and enabling digital impact.

🌾 Ag biotech startup NewLeaf Symbiotics, based in the US, secured $45 million in a Series D funding round led by Gullspång Re:food to further develop its pink-pigmented facultative methylotroph technology for use in biologicals for row crops.

🥙 US-based VC Springdale Ventures closed its Fund II with $40 million to support early-stage consumer brands across the food, beverage, pet, health, and beauty sectors. Previous brands it has invested in include Asian-inspired hard seltzer company Nectar and whiskey brand Big Nose Kate.

☀️ A consortium led by Finnish startup Solar Foods has been awarded €5.5 million from the European Innovation Council Pathfinder program to fund HYDROCOW, a project aiming to use precision fermentation to produce whey protein from microbes fed with carbon dioxide and hydrogen instead of sugars.

🥕 NutriLeads, based in the Netherlands, raised €4.5 million in a Series C funding round led by existing investor DSM-Firmenich Venturing. It will use the funds to accelerate the commercialisation of its prebiotic ingredient, BeniCaros, made from upcycled carrot pomace.

🥑 US-based Guac secured $2.3 million seed funding, in a round led by 1984 Ventures, for its AI-powered platform which predicts how many items grocers will sell on a per-item basis each day at a given store location, helping to cut waste.

👩‍🍼 Brightseed has been awarded its second grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It will use the $1.6 million in funding to support undernourished pregnant and nursing mothers, by using its AI technology, Forager®, to identify natural bioactive compounds that target environmental enteric dysfunction in these women, ultimately impacting global birth and infant outcomes.

🇧🇷 Brazilian startup Future Cow raised almost R$2 million (approximately $410,000) in a funding round led by Antler and Big Idea Ventures. It will use the funds to scale its precision fermentation technology for the production of animal-free milk, having just produced its first prototype.

🥓 Spanish biotech Libre Foods received a €335,000 public R&D grant from Neotec, a program which supports technology-based companies. It will use the funds to develop a low-cost mycelium ingredient to enhance the texture and nutrition in meat alternatives. 

📲 Munch, one of the largest food-saving apps in Central-Eastern Europe, closed its Series A funding round. The amount raised is undisclosed, but it will use the funds to expand its partnerships with restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, and hotels to help sell their unsold, high-quality food at reduced prices and reduce food waste.